The Referee Commission and Rules of the Game Commission held a joint meeting on Thursday

Lausanne, Switzerland, January 18, 2013 - The FIVB Referee Commission completed its annual meeting at the Lausanne headquarters in Switzerland on Friday focusing on a global plan for developing female referees.

The development of referees, especially of the female gender, is seen as an important goal in development the sport of volleyball. At present there are 96 international female referees and 47 candidate international referees while male referees number 1,200. The concept of female referee development was approved to be implemented in 2013-2016 period.

Other key items on the agenda included the proposal to make the use of the electronic scoresheet mandatory in all FIVB competitions while the new scheme of commission work was approved and implemented with an immediate effect: working groups covering the main directions of IRC activity:- Modern technology for IRC activity- Referee education materials- Referee database and statistics- Referee courses- Classification and ranking of IR- Beach Volleyball issues

The idea to have the professional referees has been discussed for future implementation while the official detailed explanation of the last rules modifications was discussed and approved for the inclusion into the Guidelines 2013.

The final list of all categories of IR was discussed and approved (candidates, IR, FIVB IR) while the new referee evaluation system (R4) was approved to be used starting from January 2013.

All reports of 2012 referee course were approved and the courses for 2013 were scheduled.

The Refereeing Commission and the Rules of the Game, which was also meeting at the same time, held a joint meeting on Thursday.

The meetings are the first two of 10 FIVB Commission meetings to be held in February with the TV and New Media Commission and Confederation Press Officers meeting on Sunday.